Ada Lovelace Day, 8 Oct 2019

Ada Lovelace Day (ALD) is an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). It aims to increase the profile of women in STEM and, in doing so, create new role models who will encourage more girls into STEM careers and support women already working in STEM.

Founded in 2009 by Suw Charman-Anderson, it is now held every year on the second Tuesday of October. It features the flagship Ada Lovelace Day Live! ‘science cabaret’ in London, UK, at which women in STEM give short talks about their work or research in an informal, theatre-like setting.

This year year, ALD Live! will be held on Tuesday 8 October, at The IET in London. We have a fabulous line-up of speakers, including astrophysicist Dame Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell, ecologist Dr Bala Chaudhary, mathematician Katie Steckles, bio-physicist Yolanda Ohene, marine engineer Hayley Loren, chartered engineering geologist Roni Savage, and evolutionary biologist and science communicator Dr Sally Le Page. Our compère once again will be geek songstress and one third of Festival of the Spoken Nerd, Helen Arney!

Konnie Huq, who was Blue Peter's longest running female presenter, will be on hand to sign copies of her new children’s book, Cookie and the Most Annoying Boy in the World at Ada Lovelace Day Live 2019. This is a great opportunity to get some personalised Christmas presents bought early, particularly for daughters and granddaughters!

Plus we will have the fabulous Vivian Archer from Newham Books on hand to sell you the very best science books by or about women. And there'll be a cash bar from 6:30pm until the performance starts at about 7:30pm. If you'd like a taster of ALD Live!, watch the last few years' talks on YouTube.

Introducing the Finding Ada Network

The Finding Ada Network provides peer mentorship and exclusive career development and gender equality content for women in STEM and advocates who work towards gender equality. The Finding Ada Network is for:

Women in STEM: Women from academia, education and industry, who work in any role with the broadest possible definition of STEM.

Advocates for gender equality: From women's network organisers to diversity officers to volunteers and staff at campaigning groups, all advocates are welcome, whether men or women.

Businesses: STEM businesses, large or small, who want to support their female staff and advocates can buy seats in bulk to provide long-term mentorship and support.

Mentoring is a powerful way for people to improve their career prospects and successfully meet career challenges, yet 80% of the women in STEM that we surveyed had never had a mentor. The Finding Ada Network wants to change that and make sure that all women have access to mentorship, no matter where they work or how often they change jobs or institutions.

Organise your own ALD event

Every year, people around the world, people like you, organise their own events for Ada Lovelace Day. We've put together a handy organisers’ pack for advice and resources to help people get involved by organising their own events. You can also chat to other organisers about what they are doing on our community forum or sing up to our indie event organisers mailing list.

You can also add your event to our global map. We already have several events listed for 2019, so take a look at them and past events for inspiration!

Posters, notebooks, greetings cards

You can now buy Ada Lovelace posters, prints, greetings cards, and notebooks from our RedBubble shop! We have a full range of merchandise featuring Ada Lovelace and palaeontologist Mary Anning, plus our two careers posters available for sale.

All profits go to supporting Ada Lovelace Day, and we'll be adding to our range over coming months.

Our Passion for Science

Our mission at Ada Lovelace Day is to raise the profile of women in STEM, and we think our two anthologies about the inventors, pioneers, technologists, scientists, engineers and mathematicians, both modern and historic, do exactly that! Indeed, only one thing unites these stories, whether it is the ground-breaking use of scuba diving to study sharks, or the rigorous physical and psychological testing of Mercury astronaut hopefuls — all our protagonists are women.

A Passion for Science: Stories of Discovery and Invention brings together inspiring stories of how we achieved some of the most important breakthroughs in science and technology, from the identification of the Horsehead Nebula to the creation of the computer program, from the development of in vitro fertilisation to the detection of pulsars.

Journalist and TV presenter Maggie Philbin said that the book is "a brilliant read" and a "powerful, important and engaging record of women’s experiences in science and technology. Some stories I thought I knew, others were completely fresh to me, but every one captured the spirit of a woman I would have loved to have been."

Our second book, More Passion for Science: Journeys Into the Unknown, explores topics as diverse as the Air Transport Auxiliary ferrying planes around the UK during the Second World War under incredibly dangerous conditions, the programming of the first electronic general purpose computer, and the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.

“This is a wonderful collection of stories written with charm and eloquence by a wonderful collection of people," said mathematician and broadcaster Dr Hannah Fry. "There are captivating tales of celebrated characters and intriguing hidden stories from those sidelined from the spotlight."

From Kiribati to Howland Island

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on Kiritimati Island, Ada Lovelace Day begins. Also known as Christmas Island, the coral atoll is situated in the Line Islands and is a part of the Republic of Kiribati. It lies 14 hours ahead of GMT/UTC, and 13 hours ahead of British Summer Time.

It continues for a mindbending 50 hours, until midnight on Baker Island and Howland Island, two uninhabited atolls which are actually further west than Kiritimati Island but which sit on the other side of the International Date Line. Both islands are 12 hours behind GMT/UTC, or 13 hours behind BST.

Who was Ada Lovelace?

Born in 1815, Ada Lovelace collaborated with inventor Charles Babbage on his general purpose computing machine, the Analytical Engine. In 1843, Lovelace published what we would now call a computer program to generate Bernoulli Numbers. Whilst Babbage had written fragments of programs before, Lovelace's was the most complete, most elaborate and the first published.

More importantly, Lovelace was the first person to foresee the creative potential of the Engine. She explained how it could do so much more than merely calculate numbers, and could potentially create music and art, given the right programming and inputs. Her vision of computing's possibilities was unmatched by any of her peers and went unrecognised for a century. Read our biography of Lovelace to find out more!

Why October?

People often ask why Ada Lovelace Day is the day that it is. The explanation is rather mundane: the date is arbitrary, chosen in an attempt to make the day maximally convenient for the most number of people. We have tried to avoid major public holidays, school holidays, exam season, and times of the year when people might be hibernating, so we use the second Tuesday in October.

Why not just used Ada's birthday? Well, Ada was born on 10 December and, in the UK where Ada Lovelace Day is based, December is swamped by Christmas parties, making venue hire tricky and putting us in competition with traditionally unmissable employee booze-ups. Given her tragically early death at just 36, it would feel inappropriate to celebrate her deathday on 27 November.

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Tuesday 8 October 2019 is Ada Lovelace Day, an international day celebrating the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths.

With thanks to our partners

Ada Lovelace Day is dependent on the generosity of its partners, volunteers and supporters for survival. If you would like to sponsor Ada Lovelace Day, please get in touch. We would like to thank the following organisations for their support of Ada Lovelace Day and women in STEM.